welcome to optimism

TheO

This is TheO, he's the planner on the Observer.

I'm Ben, I make jokes with logos.

Music Loves Summer

Probably the only thing that can make a summer's day better is music. As the Guardian put it this morning, "it's a truth well established by artists as different as George Gershwinand Sly Stone or Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and Olivia Newton John and John Travolta: music sounds better in the summer."

Today sees the start of our Music Loves Summer campaign for the Guardian and Observer. Over the next few months the Guardian are celebrating music with special guides, coverage of all the major festivals including groundbreaking digital features, classic rock photographs and a live version their New Band of the Day series. You can even win Glastonbury tickets.

Tomorrow there's an exclusive Lady Gaga interview – where she reveals why "pop culture is my religion".

We've worked with James Joyce to create a series of evocative graphic expressions of summer and music which we'll use in paper, digitally and at festivals throughout the summer. The first also being our badge for the series which is being used throughout the paper.

Find out more here and follow the series on Twitter with the hashtag #musiclovessummer

The Guardian and Observer Film Season: name the films challenge

The Guardian and Observer Film Season is, as you might have guessed, all about movies: how they're made, which are the best, who decides which ones you get to see, and what's the latest film news.

But it's also about naming 26 films in 85 seconds.

As part of Wieden + Kennedy's campaign to support The Guardian's film season we've created the short film above. It contains references to 26 different movies. How many can you identify? Name their titles and be entered into a prize draw to win all 26 on DVD. Need help? See what others are saying here

sex uncovered

Slightly belatedly, here is the ad we did promoting yesterday's 'sex uncovered' supplement in The Observer.

W+K does blue peter

The Observer is giving away a free Book of Art with the paper on Sunday, and for the ad, we thought there was no better way to promote the freebie than to create some art from the book itself.  And then take some snaps of it.

 

One small production budget + 24 hours + bunch of W+K talent  +some glue, scissors and fingers = An array of lovely artwork.

 

One of them is being transferred into the ad itself, but the others aren't going to waste - we're going to put them on display in reception, and create our very own miniature art gallery...

And here's the finished ad: